NPD: People prefer watching online video on televisions over computers

Definitely driven by the accessibility of streaming content on smart televisions, more people are watching online video in the home theater.

According to a new study published by the NPD Group, the most common place to watch online, streaming video is now the television rather than the personal computer. According to the results of the study, 45 percent of consumers use the television as the primary place to watch free and premium streaming video off the Web. When asked the same question during 2011, only one third of the respondents utilized the television as their first choice for watching streaming video. Alternatively, the amount of people that choose a personal desktop or laptop computer as the primary screen to watch online video dropped from 48 percent in 2011 to 31 percent during 2012. 

NPD attributes the shift to the increased adoption of Web-connected, smart televisions as well as usage of set-top boxes like the Roku 2 or gaming consoles like the PlayStation 3 on older televisions.

According to NPD’s data, about ten percent of U.S. households have at least one smart television with access to streaming video applications like Netflix or Hulu Plus. In addition, more than forty percent of those households with smart televisions have accessed one form of online entertainment within the past year.

When asked about the transition of online video into the home theater, NPD Group senior VP of industry analysis Russ Crupnick stated “The growth in connected TVs is another sign that online video is maturing. Streaming video has moved from the dorm room to the living room; and, as more households obtain and connect TVs to the Web, we predict increased trial and engagement for video distribution services.”

Definitely not surprising, Netflix dominated consumer’s time in regards to services being used on Web-connected televisions. Approximately forty percent of the respondents that had a smart television used the flat panel to access Netflix Instant programming. Other popular services included the similarly priced Hulu Plus and the pay-per-view movie service Vudu. Perhaps most interesting, nearly twenty percent of households with smart televisions stopped using devices like set-top boxes, gaming consoles or Blu-ray players to access streaming video applications.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

PlayStation 4 will support 4K playback, but Sony needs to be careful lest it repeat past mistakes

Sony is banking on 4K resolution televisions to boost its home entertainment business so the PlayStation 4 is joining the 4K party.

3D television? Feh. Smart TVs? Whatever. The new hotness in the increasingly desperate television business is 4K resolution, televisions with a horizontal resolution of 4000 pixels. The pixel density of 1080p HD televisions pales in comparison! 4K makes for enormous HD televisions with resolutions comparable to Apple’s iPhone 4 Retina Display. That’s why they call them “Ultra Definition.” These TVs are bananas. Take the LG 84-inch 4K: It is $22,000. Sony’s got one in the works too, the 80-inch XBR, which will cost around $30,000.

No one is going to be buying these things anytime soon. That isn’t stopping Sony from making the PlayStation 4 capable of outputting in 4K.

Boy Genius Report reported on Wednesday that a source indicated that the PlayStation 4, sometimes called Orbis, will support 4K playback.

Now luckily this won’t make the PlayStation 4 an astronomically expensive doodad out the gates like the PlayStation 3 was. Sony currently sells Blu-ray players capable of 4K playback for around $200.

Sony, and more specifically designer Ken Kutaragi, made the PlayStation 3 as a future-proofed catch all last decade. It had Blu-ray. It output in 1080p when the vast majority of games weren’t made for the resolution and most people hadn’t even upgraded to HD televisions. As a result, the console cost $500 when it first came out, a price that guaranteed Microsoft’s Xbox 360 a lasting head start in sales.

If 4K is a perk that doesn’t drive up the PS4’s price, then Sony should have at it. If however Sony thinks that a grand push with 4K across all of its entertainment devices is going to result in rejuvenating its television business, it should think again. Sony’s entertainment business has sagged in recent years because of the company’s insistence on technologies that consumers just aren’t interested in. 3D TV in particular has been an enormous failure for Sony.

It’s only been in the past two years that HD television adoption has finally picked up steam, and it’s still far from ubiquitous. Only 69 percent of US households have an HDTV according to Leichtman Research Group.

Sony CEO Kaz Hirai recently said that Sony needs to build its entertainment businesses—music, movies, video games, etc.—to succeed. He’s right. Sony’s hardware business meanwhile needs to take a page from Samsung’s playbook: Make it cheap.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com